Thursday, February 11, 2010

Perogy Media Bias

It's now obvious the media has been biased as far as the perogy issue goes. Marilyn Baker,Winnipeg Free Press did a comparison of Harper's prorogation and the one in 2003 by Jean Chretien. The perogies in the past were yawners, this one suddenly a crisis.

My method involved searching for the word "prorogue" (and its derivatives) in all the main media outlets in Canada on specific dates. The results are astounding. They overwhelmingly support my hypothesis.

Take 2003, for example. During the year, there were 84 articles that referred to "prorogue."

That was the year that Jean Chrétien prorogued Parliament for two months in mid-November. Speculation had it that he did so to avoid having to sit alongside Paul Martin in the House of Commons, since Martin was to be acclaimed new party leader in November. And of course it's possible that he wanted to avoid taking the increasing flak from the sponsorship scandal. Also, the 84 articles included several references to Ontario's legislature, which also was prorogued in 2003.

Now let's look at 2010. In the month of January, there were 242 articles about prorogation in our mainstream media.

From Jan. 1 to 26, the Globe and Mail published 34 separate articles on prorogation in its print edition. (Think Douglas firs.) I didn't bother to count the number of online articles, which would include their perpetually outraged bloggers.

On Jan. 31, the entire two hours of CBC radio's Cross Country Checkup was given over to prorogation. CBC's The House also dealt at length with it.

Speaking of CBC's The House, on Jan. 23 it featured Iggy's sidekick, Bob Rae, singing Just Prorogue to the Beatles tune, Let It Be. But don't worry if you missed it. You can also catch him on the Maclean's website. Rae is quoted as saying that Stephen Harper "made a terrible decision."

He should know. During his brief stint as Ontario premier, he prorogued the Ontario legislature three times, for four months at a whack.

On Jan. 13, Tom Walkom of the Toronto Star called it a crisis of governance. There were 33 prorogue references in the month of January in the Toronto Star.

To his credit, Walkom also mentions the 2003 Chrétien prorogue, and admits that the PM did it for political reasons. He writes that "Curiously, even though his (Chrétien's) motive was seen to be as self-serving as Harper's, Chrétien's actions caused much less uproar."

Curious indeed. Hello? Nobody was alerted to any crisis of governance or democratic deficit or constitutional crisis in 2003. It was merely reported as an adjournment of Parliament.

Wait, I lie. There was one article. The 2003 shutting of Parliament for two months was decried as "unacceptable to hardworking Canadians!" by an MP, Betty Hinton, from Kamloops. Her statement was reported in the Kamloops Daily News. Once.

The other day in discussing this matter with a golfing buddy, a rock solid Liberal, I pointed out that Chrétien had prorogued Parliament four times and that Pierre Trudeau had prorogued Parliament eight times.

"I didn't know that," he sputtered.

"That's because no one told you," I smiled.

I bet he also doesn't know that in the 143 years since Confederation, Parliament has been prorogued almost once a year on average. (h/t) Winnipeg Free Press"

I always thought I could take the CBC with a grain of salt...but it's become absolutely intolerable. My moment of truth came when Robert Fyfe sputtered that Harper was making us ALL out for fools. Whatever shred of tolerance I previously employed to keep from turning off our national broadcaster...it's no problem now. Man I miss Harper. Here's to Mar. 3rd and a whole new dimension in the hurling of insults and personal attacks..from all three rabid opposition parties.

Are you catching the "breaking news" that the Liberals now have a list of demands for cancelling their spring vacations? This is priceless!

You may recall Iggy already supporting this initiative, but now that he's had some time to think about it, he has demands!

I'm working on my response. Here is a preview:

So what's the deal, you guys feel the need to extract a pound of flesh or you will defy the government by going on spring break? What if your demands are not met? Does that mean you will take that trip to Barbados? I thought your fearless leader already approved the reassigned days of parliamentary sitting? I suppose his support was a "premature pronounciation"; as he did not stop to consider what concessions he could extort from the PMO.

OTTAWA — The government has opened the way for more formal hearings on the Afghan detainees affair, pledging Wednesday to reconvene the special Commons committee on Afghanistan when Parliament resumes in early March.

Frmgrl, did Martin mention anything about an email he recieved on the subject of McGuinty proroguing? I had sent him one and he replied that he had mentioned my email on a radio program, he neglected to mention which one, and I was just curious as to what he said about it.

To my knowledge..the Liberals knew in 2002, 2003, & 2004 that the conditions in Afghanistan jails were far from stellar. In 2005 Martin signed onto the detainee transfer agreement also knowing full well what was going on. Enter PMSH in 2006 and now THEY have to wear this??? I think the Liberals should have been far more careful about what they wanted exposed. This is clearly more an indictment of the Liberals than the Cons. They cleaned all of that up when the came to power. This could be fun to watch. We can only hope.